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Humanity
'HUMANITY' After the Embrace, a vampire begins to lose touch with those elements of her nature that make her human. These qualities erode over time as the vampire becomes more jaded and the world evolves without her. For this reason, the concept of Morality as outlined in the World of Darkness Rulebook is replaced with Humanity here. As an optional rule, Storytellers may allow those players applying the vampire template during character creation to trade dots of Humanity for experience points. This trade-in reflects some heinous past behavior the vampire engaged in and learned from (accounting for the added experience points), but which also scarred her deeply (explaining the loss in Humanity). Players may sacrifice one dot of Humanity for five experience points, dropping their characters’ Humanity scores to as low as five (for a maximum of 10 extra experience points). The change from life to undeath affects more than a person’s body. It changes the soul. A Kindred shares his human consciousness with a force completely opposite to humanity — a thing devoid of reason, conscience or any emotions except hunger and rage. Kindred call it the Beast. The presence of the Beast changes the very nature of morality for vampires. The Kindred can pretend to be human, but they are not. Even the most evil and monstrous mortal does not have a Beast. A vampire’s existence is a constant struggle between the Man, the aspect of a Kindred that can make moral choices, and the Beast, which cannot. The Beast follows a simple plan: Hunt. Kill. Feed. Sleep. Repeat. It feels no pity, only thirst for blood. It cannot even speak. The Man consists of everything that resists the Beast: rational thought, a conscience, and most of all the ability to relate to other people. The Beast does not understand what other people think or feel, and it doesn’t care. They are just food. When a Kindred treats other people as prey or tools or inconvenient obstacles, the Man weakens. When Kindred make an effort to interact with mortals as fellow people, to care about their lives and happiness, the Beast… waits. The slide toward the Beast is easy. It comes naturally for creatures that must take blood from the living to survive. Strengthening the Man is very difficult. Most vampires slowly degenerate. Mentally, they become less and less human, more callous and brutal. Most Kindred stabilize as monsters with some degree of selfcontrol. They give the Beast some of what it wants and fight it just enough to preserve their existence. The Beast doesn’t know how to hide the bodies; the Man does. These vampires hunt and feed and sometimes kill, but they try not to get caught. Some Kindred cannot strike that balance. Each crime makes the next one easier. They no longer care if they kill their vessels. They show less discretion in who they feed upon, where or how. They might start… playing with their food. When the Beast nears total ascendance, the Man becomes little more than a psychological appendage, adding human perversity and cruelty to the Beast’s predation. Even that remnant of mortality goes in time, and the vampire becomes a killing machine as mindless and ruthless as a shark that scents blood in the water. The vampire retains just enough self-preservation to hide from the sun, flee fire and fight back when attacked. The Kindred call such creatures draugr, from an old Norse word for a reanimated corpse that viciously stalks and kills its living relations. A draugr leaves a trail of corpses and public attacks that attract mortal attention. Even bitter enemies put aside their struggles and cooperate to stop a draugr before it breaks the Masquerade beyond repair. In rules terms, a trait called Humanity represents the balance of power between the Man and the Beast. Humanity is the specific form that the general Morality trait takes for vampires. The trait measures the connection a Kindred feels to her leftover mortal feelings and to her capacity to empathize with other beings. The lower a character’s Humanity goes, the less she cares and the more brutally she tends to act. Humanity uses the same order of sins presented in the World of Darkness Rulebook (which is reproduced here for your convenience). Just as with mortals, when an undead character performs an act that carries an equal or lower rating than his Humanity, the player rolls a certain number of dice to find out whether the character suffers moral degeneration. If the roll succeeds, the character manages to feel shame, regret or at least some human response. If the roll fails, the character feels nothing except satisfaction at getting what he wanted… and a little more of the Man slips away and the character has less with which to fight the Beast in the future. His Humanity drops by one. For what it’s worth, the threshold for further moral crises drops too, so the player might not need to roll for degeneration as often — assuming the character can resist committing more heinous acts in the future. As a character’s Humanity degrades, he grows less concerned with the world, yielding ever more to the Beast. He becomes capable of virtually any depraved act against another person. When Humanity is lost because of a sin the character committed, roll the character’s new Humanity as a dice pool. If the roll succeeds, the Kindred finds some kind of bulwark of sanity at his new level of Humanity. If the roll fails, a derangement manifests in the character’s mind. Derangements are mental and emotional “scars,” in this case brought on by the character’s stress, grief or even remorselessness over acts performed. Derangements are detailed at length on p. 186. The following is a unique hierarchy of sins for use with Vampire characters. 'ROLL RESULTS' When making a degeneration roll, use only the dice pool associated with the sin committed. Likewise, when rolling Harmony to check for a derangement, do not add other Attributes or traits. You may not spend Willpower to gain a +3 modifier on either kind of roll, though other situational bonuses or penalties may apply. *'Dramatic Failure: '''Not possible on either kind of roll. At no point is a chance roll made. *'Failure: On a degeneration roll, your character loses the struggle to maintain his standards of morality when faced with the reality of his sin. He loses one dot of Harmony. On a Harmony roll, he gains a derangement. *'Success: '''Your character emerges from his crisis of conscience with his sense of right and wrong intact. His Harmony is unchanged and he remains as sane as before. *'Exceptional Success: 'Your character re-dedicates himself to his convictions in the wake of his sin, driven by remorse and horror at the deeds he has committed. Not only does his Harmony remain unchanged on a degeneration roll, he gains a point of Willpower (which cannot exceed his Willpower dots). No special bonuses are gained for an exceptional Harmony roll when testing for a derangement. 'STATE OF THE SOUL Humanity tends to drop. All Kindred must face this stark, unavoidable truth. Their existence as predators forces them to commit abhorrent acts, if not deliberately, then when the Beast overpowers them. A Kindred might begin his unlife vowing that he shall never succumb to the Beast. Well, he shall never succumb to the Beast and not feel bad about it afterward. As the years and decades pass, Kindred find it hard to muster the same revulsion to a crime they have committed many times before. Humanity wears away from sheer weariness. High moral codes bend, then break, and are forgotten in time. Kindred tend to live down to their Humanity. As the trait drops, less and less seems objectionable. What once caused horrified repentance seems expedient — maybe even thrilling. That way, however, leads to destruction. So how can a Kindred survive the Requiem? How can he preserve some shred of human conscience when the Beast never tires? What limit can he set to his own monstrosity? The characters must answer that question for themselves. That’s what Vampire: The Requiem is all about. The specific Storytelling and game effects of degeneration are as follows: *'Humanity 10-08: '''Kindred with Humanity scores this high can seem “more human than human.” Neonates might recoil from their own monstrosity and take up ethical codes stricter than any they followed in life. They usually try to feed only from animals or seek other alternatives to victimizing mortals, and feed as little as possible in any case. They don’t have to act preachy or passively accept everything that unlife and their fellow Kindred throw at them, but they must work hard to avoid harming anyone else and to atone for any sin they commit. Interaction with mortals often matters a great deal to such Kindred, as interacting with the living helps them remember what life was like. They can also pass for mortal almost without effort. Few mortals can maintain such high ethical standards, and even fewer Kindred succeed for long. A vampire eventually loses control and kills someone, and then kills again. Kindred harden themselves to this awful truth or destroy themselves to prevent further harm to others. Few Kindred find reason to both continue their existence and remain this moral. Older, more jaded ''(or realistic) Kindred often find highly humane vampires insufferably naïve. They take dour satisfaction in the thought that the whelps will learn better, just as they did. Some elders are not above foisting “lessons” in callousness, selfishness or deceit on a neonate who thinks he can be a “good vampire.” *'Harmony 07-06: '''At this Humanity, Kindred have ethical standards like those of most mortals. They feel that killing, theft and cruelty are wrong, but they don’t go all weepy if they shade the truth a little, hit someone who tried to hit them first, or take opportunities for a little fun that don’t really hurt anyone else. Such a character has a Vice that she probably indulges in small ways with only minimal regrets. These Kindred can still easily pass for mortal, and they probably have mortal acquaintances. *'Harmony 05:' It’s a tough world, and Kindred with this Humanity score accept that they need some toughness as well. Such characters can recognize and reject deliberate atrocities… but shit happens. If some happens to them, they throw it right back. Why should they act better than anyone else? At this Humanity, a Kindred starts to show the eerie unpleasantness that puts mortals on their guard. A skilled dissembler can still persuade mortals to ignore their instincts, though. *'Harmony 04: Most Kindred eventually stabilize at or around this Humanity. Characters with Humanity 4 become genuinely callous and selfish. Murder no longer shocks them. Violence, theft, treachery, lies — these are all just tools to help a Kindred get what he wants, to gain power and to protect his all-important self. Expedience becomes sufficient justification for nearly anything. A character suffers from his Vice and indulges it with little restraint. He can still recognize the practical, legal consequences if the mortal world discovers his crimes, however, so he takes care to hide his offenses. Such a low-Humanity Kindred has a distinctly corpse-like appearance, though makeup can compensate. Beauty carries a predatory taint or shows the bland, sterile attractiveness of a manikin. Only the inability to conceive of such a thing keeps mortals from recognizing the character as a walking, talking cadaver. *'Harmony 03-02: '''A vampire does whatever he can get away with. Only the most remarkable sadism or perversion can bother Kindred with such a low Humanity… or at least seem too dangerous to justify the pleasure they would bring. All other creatures are tools, toys or food. Anyone who says otherwise has proved he is too stupid to deserve consideration. A character this inhumane feels the pull of such a potent Vice, on top of the Beast and his own ruthlessness, that he barely qualifies as sane. No amount of dissembling can help such a character pass for human for long. Mortals know within minutes that they are in the presence of a monster, even if they don’t realize what kind. *'Harmony 1: Forget sanity — at this Humanity, a Kindred can barely function as a sentient being. Little except a deranged obsession or direct threat to existence can focus the vampire’s mind against the hungers of the Beast and the drive of an overwhelming Vice. The character even has trouble mustering the cunning needed to hide her crimes and debauches from mortal authorities or other Kindred. Rotting corpses strewn about a gore-spattered haven is a perfectly typical setting for such degenerate vampire. Mortals instantly recognize the Kindred as a monster whom they should flee, or at least a psychopath in the last stages of mental disintegration. *'''Harmony 0: '''Hunt. Kill. Feed. Sleep. Repeat. At Humanity 0, a character possesses no shred of free will and cannot be played any longer. From this final degeneration, there is no return. <<<< BACK